Licensing AGAIN [was: Sharing FontLab Plugin]

[Richard Gaskin]

Rick Harrison wrote:

 > If the GPL license is overly restrictive perhaps LC should consider
 > releasing the community version under a license similar to that used
 > by PostgreSQL, MIT, or create it’s own Community License.  Clearly
 > what they are doing now is creating a mess that is causing confusion
 > in the marketplace for them.

Very desirable indeed, and achievable as well if LiveCode had the level 
of support from their user base that PostgreSQL does:  Many (perhaps 
most) full-time salaries of programmers contributing to PostgreSQL are 
paid by other companies.

For example a friend who's a technical director at Heroku tells me they 
have two people on staff whose full-time job is to write code for 
PostgreSQL.  And there are many companies doing that, like Google's 
staff that contributes to Python, the teams at Apple, Google, and other 
big companies coding for WebKit, and many others.

If anyone here is in a position to pay a few salaries for full-time 
LiveCode engine developers then a more permissive license may well be 
achievable.

But at the moment we don't see quite that level of support, so like most 
companies that offer dual licenses (MySQL, ownCloud, etc.) the open 
source edition uses GPL to provide a clear distinction:

Those who embrace the spirit of proliferating software and contributing 
to the world's knowledge through sharing source code enjoy the GPL.  The 
freedoms expressed in the GPL are among  the reasons it remains one of 
the most popular open source licenses available.

For anyone whose goals are different, a different license is available, 
as it has been for decades.

This clarity tends to influence purchasing decisions, since those whose 
business model is based around the sale of proprietary work then share 
back with the core team to keep the LiveCode project going by purchasing 
licenses.

Perhaps as community contributions to the code base increase, once it 
reaches a substantial level that reduces the core team's considerable 
overhead they may be in a position to consider different licensing.

But at the moment, even with the ever-increasing community contributions 
we're beginning to see (kudos to all who've submitted pull requests for 
code and docs!), we're still quite some ways from making a material 
difference in operational costs.  We may get there, but it'll take time.


Here's an example of how more permissive licensing can kill a project 
that doesn't already have major companies covering payroll expense:

Appcellerator used to be available for both desktop and mobile, but over 
time they decided to focus on mobile only. Rather than kill off the 
desktop edition altogether, they released that source under MIT license, 
and a new org was created to maintain and enhance it.  The new toolkit 
was called TideSDK.

In this blog post one of the project leaders described how they got only 
$600 in donations for the entire year, covering only a day or so of one 
programmer's development time:
http://www.tidesdk.org/blog/2013/04/11/tidesdk-in-numbers/

Yes, it's 404.  The project died not long after that post was made.

This discussion is about a transition from TideSDK to a new team with a 
new version called TideKit:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24440371/is-tidesdk-defunct

...which is also now defunct:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9875553


Good software is expensive to make; great software very expensive.

Having looked around for years for another tool that offers high-level 
scripting with integrated GUI elements in the language that runs on as 
many platforms, I've come up empty.  No one else even dares to take on 
the expense.

Fortunately we have enough licensees of the proprietary editions to 
cover the expenses for everyone, and supplemented by the community 
through pull requeats and crowd-funding both camps get a great LiveCode: 
those who want to participate in the libre software movement have a 
Community Edition supporting that, and everyone else has proprietary 
editions as we've always had.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com